Phase 2 Check Pathnames

Phase 2 Check Pathnames

This phase traverses the pathname tree, starting at the root directory. fsck examines each inode that is being used by a file in a directory of the filesystem being checked.

Referenced files are marked in order to detect unreferenced files later on. The command also accumulates a count of all links, which it checks against the link counts found in Phase 4.

Phase 2 reports error conditions resulting from the following:

root inode mode and status incorrect
directory inode pointers out of range
directory entries pointing to bad inodes

fsck examines the root directory inode first, since this directory is where the search for all pathnames must start.

If the root directory inode is corrupted, or if its type is not directory, fsck prints error messages. Generally, if a severe problem exists with the root directory it is impossible to salvage the filesystem. fsck allows attempts to continue under some circumstances.

Phase 2 Error Messages
Phase 2 Responses